Harvard Automatic Chime Bells
By Dick Bueschel
Ring Them Bells! The cumulative expertise of MMD is unmatched, so I feel it's time to fly questions about two machines by to see what we can drum up in the way of answers.
I have the original catalog paper, and have tracked down the patent, for the Automatic Chime Bells made by the Harvard Automatic Machinery Company in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1898 and 1899. The cabinet is a virtual duplicate of the Encore automatic banjo, tall, with five rows of four chime bells each arranged across the back. For a nickel you got two minutes of ringing bells.
The patent suggests a pinned drum, but the advertising says "Tune Sheets" (booklets?) are available for 10c each. I can't imagine any bartender putting up with this clanger for more than a day or two, and I've never seen another thing about this monster. Have any survived, and does any collection have one?
What about the tune sheets -- has any mystery music shown up with the Automatic Chime Bells notation on them?
The other question is about the Encore Automatic Banjo, or whatever. The auction lists for the closing of the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company in London, England, lists a number of "Automatic Banjos," auction date September 19, 1905. Were these imported Encore banjos from the United States, or were they -- as some suggest - -banjos made by British Mutoscope for the British and European market? Did Mutoscope make them in the U.K., and if they did, where did they get the license? Or was this a British development of the American machine?
I'm eagerly looking forward to any of the answers. MMD is fabulous, fun, and educational.
Dick Bueschel
[ I think "Tune Sheet" = "Music Disc" here. Somehow this instrument
[ seems incomplete without a clock ! -- Robbie
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(Message sent Tue 4 Feb 1997, 20:01:56 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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